Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

adrian-43767 Although it borrows from revisionist Westerns of the 1960s, notably Sam Peckinpah's THE WILD BUNCH (US 1969), THE CULPEPPER CATTLE CO. is good enough to stand on its own because it is so deeply rooted in the reality of the late 19th Century. The stills with which the film opens reflect hard and impoverished living. It sets the tone: this is no film for weak stomachs.Youngster Mockridge (Grimes) dreams of becoming a cowhand and drops the safety of life with Mom to brave a new world. His first contact with Culpepper should have shown him that he does not belong there but he knows no better, and Billy Green Bush makes Culpepper a convincing leader, who Grimes clearly admires. The way Grimes is relieved of his horse by thieves as he is relieving himself in the bush leaves you under no illusion that this film makes no apologies for human nature. He then witnesses the shooting of those thieves by the men he went to fetch for Culpepper, and baby-faced Gary Grimes captures extraordinarily well the surprise and repulsion of what he sees.In movies, the West is often portrayed as a place with no law but where, in the end, justice is done somehow. Not in this film. Here, human life is cheap, and that is brilliantly put across when Geoffrey Lewis demands a duel with a fellow cowhand who is no gunslinger, because the latter insulted him. Conversations around the fire reflect a dire absence of moral values. These men happen to be driving cattle but they would prefer to rob banks, and take considerable pleasure in killing people. Mockridge's innocence inevitably attracts trouble, costing him a broken head and a shattered spirit, and the group's horses are stolen, to Culpepper's considerable irritation.The horse recovery shootout in a salloon is a superb and credible sequence, probably the way things really happened in the West.As mentioned above, THE WILD BUNCH (US 1969) was an influence on THE CULPEPPER CATTLE CO., especially when hardened criminals decide to help a religious community against very high odds and possibly no need. There is just one point I did not understand: where did Culpepper and his men get those weapons from? Why was Mockridge carrying his Colt in a bag when it supposedly was confiscated by John McLiam and his gang?Still, Mockridge is the film's silver lining in a land of no saving grace, not even from God. The preacher who says he wants to settle on the land ("God wants it"), sees the gunmen as help to keep that land, rapidly changes his mind after the final shootout and wants to leave it because it is full of dead bodies. He does not even think to bury them, let alone pray for their souls. If ever I saw a truthful comment on the role of religion in society, this is it: the preacher resembles a vulture picking corpses. Mockridge is decent enough to force burial at gunpoint, and it is on that remotely hopeful and civilized note that this highly satisfying Western ends, to the strains of a well sung "Amazing Grace".Direction, photography, screenplay are all extremely competent. Acting is of the highest order, with Grimes, Billy Green Bush, Geoffrey Lewis, Bo Hopkins and John McLiam particularly outstanding.Strongly recommended.

Leofwine_draca THE CULPEPPER CATTLE CO. is a little-known and little-appreciated western in the Sam Peckinpah mould. It's also a coming-of-age drama about a young cowhand (Gary Crimes) who joins up with a gang of men who go on various scrapes and adventures and often find themselves outside of the law. An ensemble cast work hard to convey their characters here, with the inimitable Geoffrey Lewis standing out as a typical hard case. The dense storytelling is punctuated by the occasional burst of realistic violence, and things build to an appropriately satisfying climax. It makes for solid viewing.

Benedito Dias Rodrigues At last a fresh and demystifying western "The Culpepper Cattle Co" suprise me with so many characters can easily develop and fit in a real movie,each single small role has your value to discovery through the picture,a real portrait of old west,no fake romance,no beauty girls,no heroes,just a true and cruel all along the journey,violent as shown in many scenes,a true piece of art came to light better late than never,actually this one was a unknown gem by the mostly who loves this specific and unique genre!!Resume:First watch: 2018 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 8.75

bkoganbing The Culpepper Cattle Company finds young Gary Grimes rather bored with life in his small farming community so he goes off to what he imagines from dime novels as the glamorous life of a cowboy. A lot of the same ground was covered in the Glenn Ford/Jack Lemmon western Cowboy done in the 50s.This film makes that one look glamorous. He signs on with Billy Green Bush's trail drive and one thing is certain, Grimes just does not have the right stuff. He also finds that cowboying is dirty, dusty work day after day which can be filled with danger from the elements or from your fellow man.One thing is certain, there ain't no law out there so to speak so one makes one's own. In the end actually trying to act like movie cowboy heroes gets a lot of people killed.Such familiar folks on the drive as Bo Hopkins, Geoffrey Lewis, and Luke Askew are among the trail hands. There's one really nasty and psychotic villain in John McLiam who emerges in the last third of the film.In the near future Grimes would be featured in a John Wayne western, Cahill, US Marshal. But The Culpepper Cattle Company is about as far away from a Wayne film as you can get.But it's a sleeper of a good western.